Let’s Just Call It Casual

be aware:

physical abuse while a fetus and a pre-schooler

All of my life I have had issues with clothing being too tight and it causing me an increase in pain. I tend to wear very loose clothing and often casual wear, especially because they cost less and they are more comfortable and they are better for bike riding.

I know that I’ve written before about health issues that I was born with due to issues while in the womb. My mother had tried to end my life, often, by physically assaulting me while I was inside of her. Because of that the cord became wrapped around me and impeded my healthy growth and movements within the womb. I had issues with my arms and legs by the time I was born and doctors told my parents that they were unsure if I would ever be able to walk by myself. Within a few days the doctors were feeling much more positive. My hands and legs were moving freely and they were believing that my much improvement would continue.

I still have problems with my arms, and legs, neck and shoulders, and back. I believe that part of this is due to my earliest physical abuses by my female parent whilst I was still inside of her womb. I remember her physically abusing me for years after my birth. When I was five she physically assaulted me and caused the damage in my spine that causes most of my problems. But I think it is important to note that a woman who will physically try to abort her fetus by physically assaulting it is not a person who would balk at further abusing her child later in life.

My Advocate from the women’s shelter, two years ago, told me that I needed to stop wearing such raggy-baggy clothes. She’s not the first person to describe my clothing style as raggy-baggy. When you’re poor and only loose clothing are comfortable due to health issues, raggy-baggy may well be a good way of describing the essentials of comfort clothing.

My Advocate had insisted that I wear a really nice outfit when we went to my apartment appointment with the building manager. The clothes she gave me were way too tight and painful and even though I managed to wear them for a couple of hours, it was excruciating. I’m sure that there are tons of people who wear clothes that are snug, but I am unable to. The outfit sits in my closet. I really wouldn’t wear them again. I don’t own anything else as tight, that I have actually worn.

For Christmas Eve dinner, last year, I dressed up in a wonderful long black skirt, very loose, with a lovely green stretchy blouse and loose light red sweater. It was the first time that I have dressed up since the apartment application appointment.

Loose clothing has always helped me my whole life to have less pain and more comfort. It’s not a fashion statement. It is much more important than fashion. I would like to have more variety and more fun in my wardrobe, and indeed, I am trying to do so in my life and have been for a few years, especially to bring back more whimsy in my dress and accessories.

Helping my body to heal and to feel less pain is essential and an important part of my life and my healing path. It is one of the easiest healing things that I do for my body.

So right now I wear spring casual. In summer, of course, there is summer casual. In Autumn, there is always Autumn casual. And in winter you will find me, to the best of my ability, wearing winter casual. Let’s just call it casual.

Success in Coloring

I am very happy to report that I have accomplished my goal of coloring in a coloring book before the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas.We colored in some Christmas coloring books.

I am working on making up some goals for this year and coloring is one of them. I think it is realistic to do a goal of once a month, based on how hard this is for me and how much of my life is still up in the air, how small of a space I have in my bedroom, and how little room I have for activities of any kind and what with living in someone else’s house who is planning on trying to sell it and having to find another place to move in the spring. But I am going to try to color in the coloring books at least once a week. If I can’t I will try to be happy with the plan b goal of once a month.

Ever since I was very small my sister always tried to take everything away from me. She used to buy me or convince my mother to buy me ugly things for Christmas. She was great at robbing all the joy from me. A perfect example of this would be what she always did to me around coloring.

On my first day of kindergarten my sister went to class with me. I know that I was so scared and this is something that she had agreed to do with all of her younger siblings. I was grateful to her. The reason that I was so scared out of my mind was because my own mother was a monster, a child beater, and a sexual offender. Since my own mother was a monster, someone who was supposed to feed and clothe, love and protect me, and she didn’t I had no expectation of safety anywhere in my life.

I was scared of everything. I was scared of teachers, the school building, the other students.  My teenage sister sat in a little tiny chair next to me sitting in my chair, in front of my desk. When it came time to color, the teacher handed out a sheet of paper with a drawing of little red riding hood. I was so scared I couldn’t. I had been taught that I was completely incompetent, at everything, by my mother. I’m pretty sure now that my sister really enjoyed that, took part in it from the time I was very tiny, and liked the idea of me thinking that I was worthless.

I told her I couldn’t and that she could. She did. It was beautiful. I still remember the dark red cape and how striking that looked. I could never color that well. I took that paper home and kept it for a long time. As a child she loved to reinforce how much better she was at coloring. Yes, well I was a child and she was a teenager and then an adult.

As an adult I’ve still tried to color. My sister loved to color with me, always making sure to point out how good her coloring was. Even when she knew that I was multiple and that it was The Littles who wanted to color, she would still go out of her way to make me feel bad about myself, because my coloring just didn’t measure up.

I have never gotten good at coloring. But over the years I have continued to try, because The Littles have continued to ask to color. I’ve bought lots and lots of coloring books over the years. I currently have about 50 coloring books and 3 new sets of 96 crayon boxes.

Well actually only 2 new sets of large boxes and one box that is slightly used, after yesterday. I still judge my coloring so harshly, even while I’m aware that it is little kids doing the coloring. I would never do that to real kids. Even if they don’t have kid bodies, they are real kids and I am going to try to keep reminding myself of that. This is for them.

Usually the ugly hateful voice in my head are direct quotes from my mother abuser, but in this case I think that they are fueled and sustained by my sister and her hateful voice. Seriously, what kind of person makes a child feel bad about coloring?

I am going to try to include coloring in our creative activities and think that might help me to do it more often. I’ll post more this month about my goal setting and through the months on how that process is going.